While pork remains the most popular kind of meat in the country, despite last year’s decrease in consumption, poultry consumption was on the rise in 2012, and beef consumption fell, according to data released by the country’s statistical office ČSÚ.
“The increase in consumption of poultry meat partially substituted the decrease in total meat consumption,” the office said in a statement.
Last year, an average Czech consumed some 25.2kg of poultry, a rise of 2.9% from the 24.5kg reported a year earlier. This made poultry the second most popular kind of meat in the local market, second only to pork, with 41.3kg consumed per capita. Pork consumption was down 1.9%, or 0.8kg, compared with last year.
Meanwhile, beef consumption fell in the Czech Republic to 8.1kg, a decrease of 11% from a year earlier, as shown by data from the ČSÚ report.
Pork accounted for as much as 53.4% of the Czech meat consumption last year. Poultry consumption represented 32.5% of the country’s meat market, beef had a 10.5% share, and other kinds of meat accounted for the remaining 3.6% of the consumption per capita, which translates into 2.7kg of meat.
In 2012, imports of pork accounted for 47.1% of the Czech market, while poultry imports covered 31.2% of the domestic demand, and beef imports accounted for 17.6% of the Czech Republic’s consumption, the ČSÚ said.
On a related note, annual data from the statistical office suggests last year’s fall in meat consumption is part of a wider trend. Since 2007, when Czechs consumed some 81.5kg of meat per capita, the country’s meat consumption has decreased by about 9%. In 2011, Czechs consumed 78.6kg of meat.
The ČSÚ said the data for the annual report was collected from a number of sources, including figures from the animal product statistics from 2012, the Czech Ministry of Agriculture, and state-run Institute of Agricultural Economics and Information (IAEI).